base under attack
ethical hacking, penetration testing, IT security and other news

New German anti-hacking laws, in effect as of Sunday, have made it illegal to possess, create, or distribute hacking tools (aka security tools) that could be used to commit crimes. Vague wording makes this potentially include things like nmap and Nessus, which can just as well be used for ethical hacking purposes. And I’m sure this most certainly will include exploit code, password crackers, and mass exploitation tools like Metasploit.

Some security research teams and sites, which hosted “hacking” tools (aka security tools) and proof of concept exploits, are already in the process of moving their operations to other countries, such as the Netherlands. Phenoelit, Kismac, and Month of PHP Bugs have already acted.

And what does this mean to security professionals? Or even network administrators auditing their own networks? I’m sure the law was written with good intentions, but this kind of unclear wording is going to cause some serious issues in the security field.

I’m definitely not bringing my laptop to Germany…